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Re: Need That Gray Area

Thanks for today's rant, Jeff. As one who talks daily to both gardeners and 
yardeners, I need to know what's new. Then I can use it, or not, recommend 
it, or not, rave or rant about it. Keep that info coming, please! Ignoring 
the marketplace doesn't get us anywhere and unless we do take the time to 
learn, our judgements and those recommendations are knee-jerk as you say. As 
usual, I agree with about 85% of what you say, and that's as much as I agree 
with anybody. Here in the 'rot faster than you can imagine' south, I 
recommend landscape fabric in some situations - about the time it starts to 
shred, it's time to rework the soil. Is there a problem with the fabric 
other than soil access? Educate me, please.
Nellie


>From: Jeff Ball <jeffball@starband.net>
>Reply-To: Gardenwriters@topica.com
>To: Gardenwriters@topica.com
>Subject: [GWL]: Need That Gray Area
>Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2002 08:54:33 -0800
>
>Rick Anderson is right is his comments about the fish issue.  We garden
>writers need to better understand the gray and be a bit less black and 
>white
>on all environmental issues.
>Some folks were upset that I included some chemicals in the new products
>announcements.  The answer my friends is not simply saying "don't use any
>chemicals"; such a rant rests on deaf ears among 90% of the population.
>That is the mistake Rodale has made for 50 years.  I have known for years
>that overseeding a lawn two years in a row and raising the lawn mower to 
>2.5
>to 3 inches virtually eliminates all weeds and eliminates the need to ever
>use an herbicide again.  Every time I give that speech, and I've given it
>hundreds of times, the light bulbs go off and people come up to me 
>afterward
>thanking me for the good advice and assuring me that is what they are going
>to now start doing.  Telling people how bad chemicals are for the
>environment sure didn't dent the sales of Diazinon or Dursban for 30 years.
>Telling people how to deal with problems in realistic and practical fashion
>is the approach I prefer.  A hoe does not work very well in a lawn and corn
>gluten is far too expensive to use on 10,000 square feet.  On top of that,
>if the person doesn't overseed, he is using corn gluten forever; just
>another drug habit in my view.  There are techniques to eliminate virtually
>all problems currently dealt with by pesticides; chemical or natural.  The
>very very difficult task for garden writers is to find enough avenues of
>communication to get the information about those techniques out to the
>general public.  We have not been very successful in my view.  As Rick
>points out, one serious barrier for garden writers is that most ecological
>issues are very complex and it takes time and much energy to truly learn
>about the subtle aspects of each issue.  Most of us are not able to spend
>that time so we use the knee jerk responses which don't make much change in
>human behavior.  Books are still published, after 40 years, telling readers
>to remove mulch if you want to minimize slugs.  How stupid can that be?
>Books are still written advising homeowners to use landscape fabric to
>prevent weeds.  How stupid is that?  Very few gardening books written in 
>the
>past 30 years give any true credit to the importance of building good soil
>and maintaining good soil year in and year out.  Talk about overlooking the
>obvious.
>So enough of this rant.  I will continue publishing new product
>announcements of products I know people are going to use and buy.  All of 
>us
>should learn the good side and the bad side of products just as we try to
>learn about the good side and bad side of certain plants.  Then we should
>help our readers understand how to achieve their goals without continuing 
>to
>screw up the ecological health of the planet.  Sometimes it takes a few
>steps to get them from here to there.
>So endeth the rant for today.
>
>Jeff Ball
>
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